Community Info?

[Maine Realtor]

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Hey,

does anyone know a good community info (complete with school info, etc.) widget, map, or other type of website integrated tool that will give community information?

I'm running Joomla, and want to be able to have a module where a user can look up community info without leaving the site.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

[RESteve]

From my experience, you are going to have to compile most of that stuff yourself. Which for SEO purposes, you should! I think that by writing this information you will be adding quality unique content to your site, and in the future, you may find people linking to your site quoting your information.

[Maine Realtor]

Steve,

I agree - it is important to write your own information - however I want a user to be able to access extended information (demographics, census data, etc.) without leaving my site.

Any thoughts?

[RESteve]

Steve,

I agree - it is important to write your own information - however I want a user to be able to access extended information (demographics, census data, etc.) without leaving my site.

Any thoughts?

Why don't you just pull that information off of the government census website and create articles explaining the information? On your page describing the community, place links to the various articles containing demographics, census data, etc. and create a tree style directory using the backend interface of Joomla accessible from the front page.

That's how I would do it, if I were at the point of where you are with community pages.

[sellinggalveston]

I think RE Steve is right... you can't cut corners... Databases are nice, but generic data is boring and over used!

[webmaster]

If you are looking to do it quick and dirty, just iframe the census websites pages within your own

[RESteve]

If you are looking to do it quick and dirty, just iframe the census websites pages within your own

Didn't even think of that one. Joomla has a nifty feature called the "wrapper". It's sole purpose is just this; just make sure you make it fit nicely within your site and I always do my best to keep away from interior scroll bars.

[Maine Realtor]

you guys are right, I need to invest the time into writing the articles - I just might use the wrapper for now until then. Thanks for the input.

[hmilesjr]

If you don't have time to do the writing, you can always hire a content writer to do it. I know many who will write from $10-$25 per page depending on the number of words. If interested I can point you to where to find them.

[thegoheens.com]

Trulia has a cool new widget with neighborhood housing value state. Check it out:

http://widgets.trulia.com/